The 8.5 percent sales tax starts at $1

It is strange that immigration reduction — that is of legal immigration, as well as enforcement of our laws — never seems to make the policy mix.

I can’t remember. But I only cut things for a good reason.

First, CA K-12 teachers are amongst the highest paid in the nation. In the top 5 for sure. The CA taxpayers already spend over 40% of the state budget on K-12. Maybe if the teachers took a cut in pay and in their pension benefits there would be more funds to actually spend on the students instead of on the teachers.

Most real jobs pay based on performance. Real businesses give out raises and bonuses based on individual and company performance. CA K-12 teachers are amongst the highest paid yet rank amongst the lowest in what they get paid for: achieving strong student academic performance. The latest national standardized testing placed CA at the bottom of the pile again – with rankings in the high 40’s in reading and math. Yet North Dakota, which is ranked 2nd to the last in teacher pay, ranked in the top 10 in both.

So top pay does not = satisfactory performance in government work.

Next, CA K-12 enrolls about 1.3M ELS students. That number is nearly equal to the ELS enrollments in the next 4 most populus states: TX, NY, FL, IL. When an educational system does not have a basic primary language to work from it results in higher expenditures and lower performance. And you get less for more. That’s just pure common sense.

And then when your legislature and governor rewards (and attracts more) foreign lawbreakers by giving them incentives (CA driver’s licenses and the “Trust Act”) to come and stay it only adds to an already enormous problem.

Oh, and over 50% of the CA K-12 enrollment are from low-income familes. Another fact. So do we need to attract even more indigents to our state? The more indigents you attract (and the problems that go along with indigent populations) the fewer educated and skilled populations that you attract – since nobody wants to live in a place where you have to pay more in taxes to take care of the indigents or live in the blight or higher crime environment that go hand in hand with increased poverty.

One basic responsibility we should learn as children is taking care of ourselves. For example; to clothe ourselves appropriately before going outside or to school, to go potty in the toilet instead of next to a tree, to clean ourselves to promote good health and discourage body odors, to brush our teeth so that they don’t decay and rot. I think one other basic responsibility that should be learned by children (and their parents) is to prepare their own food so that they can function during the day. Being dependent on others to do this for you on a daily basis only teaches you that the nanny state will take care of your basic needs. This damages the basic drive to become self-sufficient. It hurts the individual. It hurts society.

The low income familes already collect food stamps to feed their members. A couple pieces of bread with mayo, mustard, tomato, lettuce and ham, an apple, a couple cookies and a pint of juice costs maybe $1.50 at most. Well within the food budget of a family collecting food stamps.

The food service in the schools was only implemented to create more unions jobs and a bigger nanny state.

From personal experience, I know that cafeteria style meals for K-12 is not necessary to perform adequately or to even thrive in a K-12 school setting. I know many who brown bagged it who became engineers, medical doctors, attorneys and accountants.

Most importantly and to the point, I feel these school cafeterias detract from personal responsibility.

P.S. I went to an unaccredited high school in a gritty, immigrant laden steel town in Penna. 6% went to college. Guess our brown bags were not nutritious enough!

Fair and Balanced!

I just read the results of the latest 2013 national standardized math and reading tests for 4th and 8th graders in CA public schools.

4th graders scored 47th in the country for both reading and math.

8th graders scored 45th in math and 42nd in reading.

So pathetic.

I thought giving them free breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner at CA public schools was supposed to make them smarter.

We (me and my classmates) brown bagged it for 12 years. It taught me self-reliance. If I didn’t pack a lunch I’d do hungry unless I could convince a buddy to give me half his sandwich. 85% of the our class eventually graduated from a 4-year college.

Congratulations on your successful family.